Chart Room unusually good last night. Chatted with two lovely couples and an old friend. All interesting people.

Met Catherine and Stephen from St. Augustine. Both with interesting backgrounds.

Catherine is in program management with Winn-Dixie. I got an education from her re the super market business. Husband Stephen is a retired electrical engineer. While in the U.S. Navy, served on the submarine USS Jacksonville.

Married 25 years. Have visited Key West 3-4 times.

Then came Dawn and Mike. From Jackson, Tennessee. Dawn a customer rep for a truck line. Husband Mike, a truck driver.

Mike is Dawn’s second husband. Her first husband Greg died in his 40’s. Greg the son of Cal Perkins. Cal Perkins wrote Blue Suede Shoes. Later made famous by Elvis Presley.

Mike a look a like for movie star Sam Elliot.

Dawn’s first husband Greg was fond of Key West. His ashes were spread along Smathers Beach.

Dawn flew from Jackson with Greg’s ashes. Security avoided looking in the container carrying his ashes when she told them what the container contained. They sort of stepped back from the dead.

I did my first book signing a few months ago at the Andrews Inn. Author Robert Codrun put the event together and asked me to participate.

Robert lives in California. He is back in Key West. Arrived yesterday. A couple of hours before we ran into each other at the Chart Room.

A big week is coming up for mystery writers. A very large group will be in Key West to participate. Robert returned to be part of the event.

While all this was going on, Ollie was standing at the end of the bar as overseer. His eyes on everyone.

My stomach told me I was hungry. Stopped at Five Guys. The perfect meal for my diet. Two cheeseburgers wrapped in lettuce. No bread. And a diet soda.

I have some Trump observations. A walk back in history first. Nothing to do with Trump.

Henry Hudson. We all learned in grammar school he discovered the Hudson River. As Columbus before him, he was looking for a passage to the East.

On Hudson’s fourth trip to the New World, he continued north on the Hudson River to Hudson Bay. Winter was setting in. He waited too long to get his ship out into open water. It froze stuck in the waters of Hudson Bay.

A cold winter. Insufficient food. Hudson’s crew not happy campers.

In June when the ship was able to move, the crew mutinied. They were unhappy that they had been forced to suffer the winter and blamed Hudson for his poor judgment.

Hudson, his teenage son and seven crewmen were placed in a small boat and set adrift.

Hudson not a Captain Bligh. The tyrannical captain of the Bounty who had a similar experience but guided his small boat thousands of miles to safety. Hudson, his son and the seven sailors were never heard from again.

Trump time.

Melania visited a Lutheran shelter for immigrant children yesterday. Children 12-18. The kids had already been there for some months. The place looked terrific. The staff appeared professional and caring.

On the surface, a big deal Melania visited the place. Not enough from my perspective. It would have been better had she visited the caged and otherwise detained babies, toddlers and those under 10. She should have been, and we should have been able to see, the down and dirty of the past few days.

A good move by the first Lady. Short of what it should have been.

Trump has several shortcomings hitting him all at one time. Deservedly so. America must see who the man truly is.

His biggest fiasco the breaking up of families. The immigrant children. Thousands who may never be able to reconnect with their families.

Trump’s immigrant move unquestionably a failure.

The immigration bill. Two failed yesterday. A third one is being worked on over the weekend. It may be voted on next week. Perhaps not. It is not what Trump wants. He mentioned on TV they should hold the vote next year at a time when a new Congress might pass it.

Lies galore. By Trump and Sessions. To cover up the poor judgment behind the immigrant problem. The public will not be deceived. Both are being shown on TV before the breakdown of their plans telling us how right it was, the legal thing to do, etc.

Military base facilities are being prepared for 20,000 immigrant children. Instead of wasting money on fixing and staffing new facilities to house and care of them, the money should be spent to quickly determine which children belong to which parents and get the families together.

I have written several times recently that big corporate dollars are involved in caring for the immigrant children. I referred to it as a million dollar business. Not so. The New York Times yesterday reported it was a billion dollar business.

Most are private prison corporations. One has been paid $955 million since 2015. Several others have been paid millions of dollars.

Fraud guaranteed! Someone should follow the money.

This tariff thing is going to break the back of the U.S. Perhaps the world. China’s media claim the U.S. has “delusions” as the impact of the trade war spreads.

Trump does. Millions of U.S. jobs will ultimately be lost. The economic impact will be world wide. A recession similar to 1929 could occur. Recall, Hoover became President. The late 1920’s were booming. The market at an all time high.

Hoover believed tariffs were appropriate. As Trump does. He was wrong. The Great Depression occurred.

It could happen again.

Trump tells us Saudi Arabia is our friend. Have always been our friend. Bullshit! Never forget Saudi Arabia gave us $4 a gallon gasoline.

The U.S. in recent times had enjoyed a dominance in the energy field. We now export more oil than ever before. The world our customers. Saudi Arabia has had to take a back seat.

Saudi Arabia and OPEC not happy with the situation. They have joined with Russia to regain OPEC’s dominance and diminish that of the United States.

My KONK Life column this week is Sit AT Attention Or Die. Recall last week Trump mentioned he liked it the way people sat at attention when Kim spoke. He wished his people would.

Kim’s people sit at attention because it is death not to. He killed two high ranking officials for the way they sat when he spoke. One for slouching, the other for falling asleep.

20 comments on “Unusually Good Chart Room Last Night”

Hurricane season is upon us. Here’s an “under the radar” news story about last year’s devastating season:

The mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, who shot to international fame after criticizing President Trump for not doing enough to help Hurricane Maria victims…

is being investigated by the FBI on corruption charges.

Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz and her administration are under Federal investigation for allegedly obstructing critical supplies from reaching victims of the category-4 hurricane that leveled much of Puerto Rico.

This is a rumored ‘general’ FBI investigation into corruption within PR, apparently brought about by an employee fired in 2015, now alleging some disaster recovery issues. Not a specific investigation into Cruz herself, which is only being reported by the right wing press. Shoddy stuff, as usual.

luis on June 22, 2018 at 3:52 pm said:
This is a rumored ‘general’ FBI investigation into corruption within PR, apparently brought about by an employee fired in 2015, now alleging some disaster recovery issues. Not a specific investigation into Cruz herself, which is only being reported by the right wing press. Shoddy stuff, as usual.
end quote + reply key

Yep, It is an investigation into corruption regarding the supply distribution and government officials corruption. The alleged corruption has been mentioned here before, and of course, challenged. She is a part of this. I would agree that it is ‘shoddy stuff’ on the part of those involved if shown to be true, not because of it being reported by the ‘right wing press’. I find it interesting.

Tim on June 22, 2018 at 5:13 pm said:
Of course you would Patrick, you hate these PR people and have shown your contempt for them for nearly a year now. Not really surprising how you would jump on this tenuous “cough” scandal.
end quote + reply key

That may be your spin, but, its not true at all. i get my info from good news sources as well as friends in PR. I think those friends would be interested in just how much I hate them. They could use a good laugh about now.

There are some is PR that I guess you could say I hate, its those that are corrupt and withheld the supplies and are continuing to sell them on the black market. I’ve said this, and, only this, all along.

Patrick, you are kidding right? You act like you don’t know we can all see your posts on this blog, where you are always blaming the destruction and hardship of the hurricanes last summer and fall on people of Puerto Rico themselves and have continued to do so even now, well after it’s been shown that our government has clearly let them down and then lied about it.

You say you get your news from: “good news sources as well as friends in PR,” but that’s not true and you have been called out on this before. Furthermore, you can not now claim to have ONLY said you hated only: “those that are corrupt and withheld the supplies and are continuing to sell them on the black market” when I cannot find you ever having said that. But I can easily find many other things that you have actually said of the Puerto Rican people unfairly disparaging them, now for nearly a year or more, constantly suggesting and referring that they themselves are to blame with their hardship and suffering. So can anyone else who cares to go through the KeyWestLou’s archives.

Take what you said on Oct 1st, several weeks after the storm: “No one has died since the storm pas*ed like the Mayor is trying to say,” or on Oct 2 when you said: “Cruz says her people are dying – not true.” – Both of these seemed to be said by you with a very aggressive voice and at least to my ear, in a prejudicial and mean way. That wasn’t true even then and your source(s) were obviously wrong and horribly misguided.

Then you said on October 3rd that: “their homeland is in disaster and they need to get off their as*es…” again, either from bad news sources or your own extremely poor and insensitive personal opinion. People were dying in the thousands. You were blaming the victims, yet at the same time (Oct 5th) praising Trump for: “…getting the job done.” And don’t say that’s what people were telling you, there was no communication with PR at the time, you were getting bad news and we all know from where.

Then there are your several posts about trucker strikes that never occurred, you continued to ride that pony, well after even Lou himself called you out on that (Oct 3) as not true. You also declared that only 20% of the PR people were showing up for work, saying you thought that was “disgusting” as in a not so subtle effort to suggest they were somehow complicit or derelict, ignoring the obvious that there was no communication to tell them were to go, there was no way to get there, and there was for the most part nothing to do apart from try and dig out of what was a near total destruction and bury their dead and help the thousands injured.

Even in May (31st), nearly eight months later, you piled on by posting that: “The strike was called off and the truckers did go back to work due to the notoriety of the reports and resulting outrage.” when it was clear that there never was a strike and it was widely known that was all bad and dishonest reporting.

I could go on and on about your obvious hate for the Puerto Rican people, including your occasional, out of the blue, rants about Oscar Lopez Rivera. But I’m tired of writing about you and your constant lying on this (and other) subject. I’m sure everybody else is tired of you trying to spin what you have said, as well. But go ahead and keep it up, I’ll be here to regurgitate your hateful actual words, as well as your lies in any attempt to cover things up.

Tim – thank you for your post. I was in several arguments with Patrick about all of this while it was happening. Patrick was hard to deal with then, often contradicting himself and constantly changing the subject, belligerent too. Not a nice person.

Yes, this is personal to me. My sister went to Puerto Rico after the storms to help out. She’s back now, but not fully recovered. She can hardly talk about what she’s seen and had to deal with. To have some one like Patrick piling on for personal or maybe political reasons and then to lie and deny about it, is just too horrible for me to let go without comment.

Even now he twists and denies what he himself has said, all easy enough to look up and verify. He now wants to talk about “numbers” differing KW from PR, why? I was only refuting his claim that he had ONLY ever said he hated JUST those PRs who “are corrupt and withheld the supplies and are continuing to sell them on the black market.” Clearly he WRONG about that, which was all I was refuting. Now he wants to expand that to include “as well as those that didn’t show up to work because of the impending trucker strike.” (which of course never was) having been caught on that statement. This guy doesn’t seem to even be able to get his lies straight.

I’ll stand by what I said. Some of what you said is true, some not. My ‘hatred’ is toward those that withheld and are still withholding supplies, as well as those that didn’t show up to work because of the impending trucker strike. If you don’t what to believe that happened, fine.

I could give figures comparing PR with the Keys, but, there would be no use to that. You think you know all about this.